The Jazz Voyager
Green Mill Jazz Club: 4802 N. Broadway Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640 / Telephone: 773.878.5552.
The club presents a variety of jazz – Dixieland, traditional, bebop, contemporary and progressive – played by such legendary figures as Von Freeman, Franz Jackson and Wilbur Campbell, as well as young lions Kurt Elling, Eric Alexander and Orbert Davis. All capture the broad spectrum of jazz from its root rhythms in New Orleans to New York avant-garde. Deep smokey jazz sounds fill the club in the early morning hours when soulful musicians continue to express their love of jazz by jamming ’til the early dawn.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Annie Get Your Gun rose its curtain for the first time at the Imperial Theatre on May 16, 1946. Irving Berlin composed the music for its stars Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton. The show set a record with a run of one thousand, one hundred and forty-seven performances. From the musical came three tunes that entered into the jazz lexicon – Anything You Can Do, There’s No Business Like Show Business and They Say It’s Wonderful.
The Story: Annie Oakley is poor but happy country girl and an infallible shot. This sharpshooting lands her in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. She falls in love with rival sharpshooter Frank Butler, who tells her the girl that he marries must be a dainty thing, which Annie is not. It seems the only thing they can agree on is that when folks talk about love it’s wonderful. A shooting match is arranged between the two, Sitting Bull tells her that to win her man she must lose the match. Although Annie boast anything you can do I can do better, she loses the match anyway and the man.
Broadway History: Though Broadway was becoming less of an industry and more of a loose array of individuals, in the next four years this would have positive aspects. America would soon fall prey to increasing intolerance and political persecution but Broadway would continue to express unorthodox opinions without fear of government retaliation. Broadway would lose some of its scope but retain its liveliness and joyfulness in an increasing corporate environment. In a country that now required conformity, Broadway preserved a sense of freedom of speech and action, ideals on which this nation was founded. This was no less rewarded with the establishment of the private club of the “blockbuster musical” has offered entry to only a chosen few that have had more than a thousand performances. The first to join this esteemed club is this weeks feature Annie Get Your Gun.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
The Jazz Voyager
Port Harcourt Jazz Club: 3, Khana Lane, D/Line, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Telephone: +234 803 3362062 Fax: +234 84 236772 / Contact: Chris Finebone.
With over 300 members., this jazz club organizes the Annual Opobo Beach Jazz Festival. The club engages both local and international jazz musicians to satisfy the cosmopolitan taste of members in the oil and gas business here week days & weekends.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
The Majestic Theatre opened the curtain for Carousel for the first time on April 19, 1945. With music composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the musical ran for eight hundred and ninety performances. John Raitt and Jan Clayton had the title roles in this play adapted from the famous Molnar story of Liliom, from which came two songs that would endear themselves for years as jazz standards – What’s The Use Of Won’drin’ and If I Loved You.
The Story: Billy Bigelow, a shy New England carnival barker falls in love with Julie Jordan. Eventually winning Julie’s heart, he later discovers she is pregnant. Jobless, Billy decides he must provide for his son, or daughter, he agrees to join his criminal friend Jigger Craig in a robbery to earn extra money. The plan misfires and Billy kills himself rather than being caught. Before a heavenly judge he pleads for another chance to return to earth to earn his redemption and see his daughter. When his daughter refuses his gift of a star he has stolen from the sky, he slaps her and returns to purgatory. The widowed Julie and child are left to continue to live starkly. The story is set in Maine where majestic backdrops add emotional emphasis.
Jazz History: It was known simply as The Street and as historian Arnold Shaw stated in his book 52nd Street, “If you flagged a taxi in NYC and asked to be taken to The Street, you would be driven, without giving a number or an avenue, to Fifty-Second Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues” By the late 1940s, as the jazz clubs turned into strip joints, many bemoaned the death of The Street. They considered this era to be the block’s decline.
In 1948, Time magazine decried the change from jazz to bump-n-grind: “where nightclubs in sorry brownstones crowd each other like bums on a breadline”, an era was all but over. Swing was still there, but it was more hips than horns. Barrelhouse had declined and burlesque was back. There was little jazz left on 52nd Street and even the customers had changed. There were fewer crew haircuts, pipes and sports jackets and more bald spots, cigars and paunches.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
The Jazz Voyager
Thelonious Jazz Bar: Av, 20 de Octubre # 2172, Sopocachi, La Paz, Bolivia / Contact: Juan Pereira and/or Juan Carlos Carrasco / Teléfono: (591-2) 2424405 Cell: (591) 77564742 / monk.thelonius.monk@gmail.com or http://www.theloniousclub.com
A small, intimate jazz club located at an altitude of 4000m presenting all forms of live jazz and blues. The walls are decked out with artwork of jazz musicians and the atmosphere is relaxed and inviting – you could be forgiven for thinking you’re in a candlelit club in New Orleans rather than in La Paz.
On Mondays and Tuesdays there’s no cover and you can listen to groups practice, and local and international artists perform Wednesday through Saturday. Open from 9:00pm – 4:00am. Drinks and snacks.
Bebop fans love this charmingly low-key bar for its live and often impromptu performances and great atmosphere. A flier on the wall promotes forthcoming sessions. There is an annual jazz festival held here the first two weeks of September.